A Beautiful Lie
by uvkorn7
Summary: Alternative prequel to the show. Takes place at Youngstown State University where everybody has a new name.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Austin Cooper sighed deeply as he pushed up his heavy yellow framed glasses and ran his hand through the top of his chestnut hair. He was in line at Beat Coffee House, located just a few blocks from Youngstown State University. It was the weekend before finals and Austin was in desperate need of caffeine. He hoped the barista could successfully complete his order of a carmel almond milk macchiato, but by the constipation of the line movement, he had his doubts.

Bored, Austin plucked imaginary piece of fuzz off of his tight brown, yellow, and red plaid shirt. He fingered his tortoise shell colored gauges and gave his thick moustache a pat down before he finally pulled his iPhone out of the undersized pocket of his skinny jeans and checked for missed text messages.

Delilah Morgan - "Wer r u?"

Austin's heart gave a tiny jump at seeing her name on the screen. Although they had been dating for a few weeks now, he still got excited whenever he received a message from her. This was usually quickly quelled by the atrociousness of her grammar and composition in each transmission. Despite her lack in formal writing training, he forgave her because of the way her ass looked in a pair of vintage petal pushers.

While composing his reply in his mind, a pair of slim fingered hands came from behind and covered his eyes.

"Guess who?" said a gender neutral voice.

Since Austin was casually sleeping with 30% of YSU's campus population, he literally had no idea who was behind him.

"My favorite person?" Austin guessed safely. He turned around and saw his best friend and occasional fuck buddy, Leopold Masuka. Bending his 6' 2" frame down, Austin embraced his small friend.

"I was just on my way to set up my installation at the campus art gallery, do you want to help me?" Leopold asked suggestively, sliding his small hand up Austin's forearm.

Austin considered his options, looking over Leopold's small, compact body. His started at Leopold's non-brand name shoes in faux stressed condition, then up to the carefully cuffed ends of his dark washed skinny jeans. Austin's attention moved further up, toward the gleaming Strongbad belt buckle that was settled just below the hem of a light blue t-shirt with a drawing of a single Eggo waffle on it.

Feeling a burgeoning erection, Austin caught Leopold's gaze. Heavy white framed glasses were perched above a neatly combed moustache. His silky black hair had been carefully constructed into a gentle wave at the top of his head with a grey wool oversized beanie perched at the end. He looked like a Japanese version of Jack Antonoff.

"As tempting as you are, I have to pass. I gotta cram for Professor Doakes' stats class. I spent too much time doodling dick n' balls instead of taking notes during lecture, so I basically have to memorize the text book from beginning to end," Austin griped.

"No prob, dude. I should probably be studying myself," Leopold said with disappointment, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking down.

"Hey, when finals are over do you want to go shopping at the Salvation Army in Boardman?" Austin asked optimistically while trying to capture Leopold's eyes again.

A smile melted over Leopold's face. He nodded, reached up and gave Austin a peck on the check before he turned and ran out of the coffee shop.

Relieved he hadn't ruined his fwb status with Leopold, Austin turned around and stepped up to the counter to order his coffee. As he suspected, the barista was an inept conformist with a cliché cursive tattoo peeking out of her shirt.

_It's probably misspelled, too_.

He ordered his drink and waited off to the side, checking his phone again. He thought about texting Delilah to come over and give him a blow job, but reconsidered, thinking it was too adolescent to be overly indecent via text.

"August?" the blonde barista called out.

Austin rolled his eyes and stepped up to collect his macchiato. He grabbed the to-go-cup from her and took a tentative sip.

"This has mammal lactate in it!" he spat the liquid in his mouth out in a spray of disgust.

"I'm sorry, I forgot," said the clinically brain dead barista. "Do you want me to make you a new one? On the house?"

"FUCK IT," enunciated Austin as he slammed the cup on the counter and walked toward the exit. Silently, he ranted in his head.

_I have other plans for you now, you stupid dugong. I will have my revenge and you will wish your pathetically mainstream life had taken a different turn. Soon, you will be MY victim._


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

It was a warm day for early spring in Ohio, so Austin had rode his single speed bike to the coffee shop. He put "Sail" by AWOLNATION on his iPhone and began the leisurely ride to his home. Although he had calmed down considerably from the barista incident, he was still formulating his revenge.

He arrived at the house he rented with his two friends, Baptiste and Quinton. After locking up his bike, he trekked up to his room.

Austin sat at his desk and opened his aluminum MacBook Pro. It was covered in stickers, which included Andre the Giant, Mario Bros, and an "I like Ike" campaign button.

Pulling up Chrome, he went to the OkCupid website. After checking his new matches and messages, he logged out and started to create a new account. He decided his new persona would be a crew-cut sheeple named Carlson with an anti-book reading outlook on life. Googling "old school Channing Tatum," Austin found an obscure picture to put as the profile pic. Filling out no other profile information other than "looking for women ages 18 – 75 for casual sex," he began to peruse the local matches, looking for the blonde barista from Beat Coffee House.

After narrowing down the search, he found that brain dead sea cow and composed a message. Deciding to catch dumb with dumber, he simply typed, "hey bb want sum fuk" and hit "Send."

With his deed done, Austin put "Best Day of My Life" by American Authors on his iPhone and leaned back in his chair, placing his hands on the back of his neck.

He had performed this ritual many times. Serial catfishing was his preferred way to exact his revenge. Over the years, he had honed his skills in stringing people along before dealing a devastating blow. He never revealed who he really was; he picked from a variety of endings which included his character dying, faking their own death, confessing that they were a long lost sibling, and paying a meth'd up prostitute to meet with the mark. In fact, he had become so proficient at the game, he was becoming bored.

He wanted a challenge. He wanted to break a sweat and bring his ethics under scrutiny. He wanted his prey to question reality and worship him at the same time. He wanted to become God.

But he was smarter than believing in god, so he quickly dismissed that last train of thought.

As his mind started to wander, he remembered that Delilah had texted him earlier.

"Im home. Wer R U?" he texted, cringing at himself. He considered typing this way a type of compassion for Delilah so that he didn't have to constantly hold his superiority above her.

After a few seconds, his phone chimed with a vintage Nokia ring tone.

"At the liberry studding. Cum join me? ;)"

"Jesus CHRIST," Austin said aloud.

"Sure. b thr soon"

Austin had thrown up a little in his mouth, so he made his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

When he came out, Baptiste was walking up the stairs with an old acoustic guitar in his hands.

"Hey buddy! How's the studying going?" Baptiste asked enthusiastically. A genuine smile was spread across his face. He was wearing a pair of heavy red framed glasses without lenses. Two small black studs were on each of his cheeks. His tight white shirt with a blue litho print of a T-rex was a pleasant contrast to his warm brown skin. He looked like a super young **Nestor Carbonell in his tight tan skinny jeans and tan and black newsboy cap.**

**"Not doing much of it, I'm having a hard time concentrating," Austin said as he winked at him.**

**Baptiste looked away shyly and smiled again.**

**"You're such a slut. I've got to practice my Phillip Phillips songs in my room for my final, so I'll see you around later," said Baptiste.**

**"Okay, but just make sure you don't go too Dave Mathews when you're performing Phillip Phillips. It's a slippery slope," advised Austin as he walked past Baptiste and jogged down the stairs.**

**He went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. It was full of organic fruit and veggies, free-trade juice, free range chicken, and thirty or so Blue Edition Red Bulls. Austin selected a Red Bull and shut the refrigerator door.**

**Quinton, his other roommate had appeared to his left. Tall, blonde and lanky, he looked like Robert Ackroyd from Florence + the Machine. He was wearing a lot of cranium accessories: heavy framed crayon blue glasses, a grey and white striped oversized beanie, large white gauges and a light blonde Van Dyke. He was casually leaning against the counter with his left foot crossed over his right. His arms were crossed as well.**

**"You going to see Delilah?" he asked.**

**Quinton had been crushing on her since freshman year, but didn't have the balls to make a move. Since they weren't nematodes and didn't have a bro code, Austin didn't see anything wrong with asking out Delilah when he met her.**

**Unfortunately, Quinton was still all butt hurt about it. They had been friends since high school, so Austin didn't understand why his oldest friend couldn't move on.**

**"Yeah, we're just going to be studying – do you want to come with?" Austin inquired without any real intention of allowing him to come along.**

**"No. Whatever. Fuck that dugong" he mumbled as he pushed off the counter and stalked out of the room.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**Austin arrived at the campus library and locked up his banana yellow bike with the plethora of other bikes parked outside of the building.**

**Once inside, he scanned the room for Delilah. He spotted her as she removed her heavy black framed glasses from her face. She rubbed her eyes, which were dry and irritated from looking through lenses that offered absolutely no visual assistance whatsoever. As she replaced her glasses, Austin heard a faint jingle from the twenty or so bracelets she was wearing.**

**Her gently tousled black hair was flipped over to her right side, revealing patch of short cropped hair on the left side of her head. She was wearing a bright orange vintage dress and a small faded jean jacket with rolled up sleeves. Unfortunately, she was a bit of a butterface. She reminded Austin of Zooey Deschanel.**

**She looked up at Austin as he approached and squealed in delight. Delilah jumped up from her chair behind a long desk and threw her arms around his neck.**

**Austin was worried that she was exposing her exquisite posterior in her short dress. He let his hands come around her body to cup her opulent backside and found he had worried for naught; she was wearing a pair of leggings. When he released her from the embrace, he noticed the leggings were sheer and had multi-colored paint blotches cover the upper thigh in the front and back.**

**"I'm so glad you're here! To be honest I haven't been doing much studying," Delilah confessed in a rapid fire cadence. Austin sighted her iPad laying on the table playing a YouTube video of Julia Nunez featuring A Great Big World.**

**An outrageously handsome guy, who had been hovering over the iPad, looked up and locked eyes with Austin.**

**"Oh, Austin – this is my brother, Dexter!" Delilah said with a renewed high pitched zeal.**

**_Holy hell, is she always ON?_**

**Austin extended his hand to Dexter, who rose from his chair to accept the greeting. As they shook hands, Austin realized that Dexter was taller than him.**

**Dexter's handshake was warm, dry, and lasted longer than most new acquaintance handshakes should. Austin didn't mind as he admired his new friend.**

**Dexter had light green-blue eyes that were framed in soft black lashes and a pair of thin black rimmed glasses. He had straight black hair that fell over the left side of his face and a Van Dyke. He was wearing a brown oversized beanie, a tight short-sleeved white collared shirt, a skinny grey tie, and maroon skinny jeans. If compared to Jared Leto, lead singer of 30 Seconds to Mars, they would be twins.**

**"...just back from California. He's staying with us until his new job starts in Miami in September. Dexter didn't follow in dad's footsteps, like me, and go into law enforcement..." Delilah blathered on at full speed. Neither Austin or Dexter were paying attention.**

**"Hey," I said softly.**

**"Hey," he replied. "I like your glasses, are they real?"**

**"Yeah. Yours?"**

**"Nah."**

**"We're going to eat at a sustainably local restaurant in North Lima tonight, do you want to go with us?" I whispered.**

**"Totes McGoats," he responded quietly as he winked.**


End file.
